Drawer assemblies are often designed to be knocked down for the purposes of ease of transportation or flexibility of configuration. The knocked down parts of drawers of this type must be easily assembled by the general public without the requirement of specialized tools or skills. Known knock-down drawer assemblies generally consist of a bottom panel, a front panel, a back panel and a pair of side panels affixed to and extending parallel between the front and rear panels as well as engaged with the bottom panel along its longitudinal length.
With new construction materials and methods, drawers are no longer solely made from wood or wood products; other materials such as formed sheet metals or plastic moldings are increasingly being used. It is now common to have a drawer assembled with parts made from a variety of materials. Particularly, it is becoming increasingly known for drawer side panels to be made from sheet metal and assembled with front, back and bottom panels that may be made from the same metal material or other materials, such as wood, for example.
For such drawer assemblies, it is therefore necessary to provide suitable fittings for securely affixing such side panels to both the drawer front and back panels.
An existing corner fitting for fixing drawer sides to a drawer rear panel was disclosed in Malaysian patent application no. PI 20021816. The existing corner fitting comprises an L-shaped bracket for engaging the corner fitting with a drawer side via an angle bracket and a rear panel fitting for securing the corner fitting to a drawer rear panel.
The angle bracket is attached onto the drawer side by way of spot welding, screws, bolts, nuts or any other suitable means. The L-shaped bracket is provided with an integral guide bracket on the inner face of the major flange. A triangular bracket having an L-shaped guide is disposed at the lower corner of the vertical marginal edge joining the major and minor flanges. The integral guide bracket together with the L-shaped guide of the triangular bracket form a first recess for slidably receiving a side flange of the rear panel fitting. A resilient extension, for locking the side flange inserted into the first recess, is provided on the inner face of the major flange. The extension projects away from the inner face in a direction parallel with the drawer rear panel. A second recess is formed on the outer face of the L-shaped bracket for slidably mounting the L-shaped bracket onto the vertical flange of the angled bracket.
From the above description, this prior corner fitting comprises three separate components, namely, the side panel mounting bracket (angle bracket), the L-shaped bracket and the rear panel mounting bracket (rear panel fitting), for engaging a drawer side to the drawer rear panel. This is obviously undesirable as such a corner fitting is costly to manufacture and time-consuming to assemble. Thus, it would be desirable to have a corner fitting consisting of a single component for engaging a drawer side to the drawer rear panel.
Such a single component corner fitting is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,279,455.
For use with the corner fitting of this U.S. patent, the drawer front panel is provided with a pair of vertical grooves of female dove-tail configuration on its inner face, each groove located adjacent and disposed parallel with a respective vertical marginal edge. Each side panel has one marginal edge of male dove-tail construction adapted to be received in the respective vertical groove of the front panel. Further, each side panel is provided with a groove disposed on its inner face, located adjacent and parallel to the opposite vertical marginal edge. The rear panel is provided with a pair of vertical grooves on its inner face, each groove located adjacent and parallel with a respective vertical marginal edge.
The drawer side panels are secured to the rear panel by way of retainers (corner fittings). The retainers are essentially an L-shaped bracket comprising a pair of first members (outer members) connected along a marginal edge and extending from one another at a substantially right angle, and a pair of second members (inner members) connected along a marginal edge and extending from one another at a substantially right angle. The first and second members are spaced apart and connected by an elongate web at their marginal edges so as to form panel receiving channels therebetween. Tabs are provided on the second members. These tabs are disposed to extend toward the first members and are adapted to be received in the grooves adjacent and parallel to the vertical marginal edges of the side and rear panels.
An obvious disadvantage of the prior corner fitting (retainer) of the above U.S. patent is that it is confined for use with drawer assemblies having wood or pressboard panels, only. As afore-mentioned, it is both common and desirable to have drawer assemblies comprising panels made from a variety of materials such as metal, plastic moldings or wood. Therefore, when using the prior fitting of this U.S. patent, the user's flexibility in terms of materials and/or design of the drawer assembly, is restricted.
This invention thus aims to alleviate some or all of the problems of the prior art, and to provide a single component corner fitting that accords the user flexibility in terms of materials and/or design as well as ease in assembly of drawer sides to a drawer rear panel, without the use of special tools or skill